Mail & Guardian’s new daily podcast

Mail & Guardian has just launched a new daily podcast called the Lunchtime News Wrap. So what is this podcast all about:

The M&G Online provides a short midday podcast of the main news stories of the day, Monday to Friday, covering local, international, business, sport and Africa news.

The episodes are pretty short (around 2 to 3 minutes and under 1MB) are basically an audio equivalent of the SABC’s News in 60 seconds. So these are great little episodes you can download around lunchtime or so and quickly catch up on the day’s news. The first episode is available for download. You can also subscribe to the feed.

I just listened to the first episode and it is a great idea although the sound quality could be better. I guess there is a tension between a small download and better audio quality (which means bigger file sizes). In terms of content you have everything from news to sport to weather for the day. This is a great idea and blurs the lines between regular broadcast radio and time-shifted audio shows.